Emissary
by CimentSemantique
Summary: AU in which Star Trek doesn't suck about the way it treats Bajor and Winn Adami becomes the Emissary to the Pah-wraiths and Bajor gets its justice and everything is on fire and also great.


"Did you really think the Pah-wraiths would choose you to be their Emissary? Soon the Pah-wraiths will burn across Bajor, the Celestial Temple, the Alpha Quadrant. Can you picture it? A entire universe set in flames, to burn for all eternity. The Prophets have sent me a gift. Their beloved Emissary, sent forth like an avenging angel to slay the demon."

"I should have known the demon would be you."

And clear through the smoke cuts his voice, and Winn Adami looks up on ceremony. Of _course_ it's him; it's_always_ him. Proud in his Starfleet uniform, falsely humble with his phaser cast aside: Benjamin Sisko, who is of Bajor by some power unknown to her who has suffered and who has only ever had Bajor. Benjamin Sisko, usurper; Emissary of the Prophets. The Off-worlder, come from beyond the Temple. Not Winn Adami, who en lieu of hope has given herself to the gods; not even the Kira girl, who though riotous and condemnable belongs to the Prophets. What wealth, what dignity Winn Adami would have given to see the Kira girl there; eyes flashing, teeth baring, earring glinting! But here stands this Federation officer, unwilling _yet strangely yielding_. Here stands the Federation vole, face blank and closed, _doing his duty_. The fire burns behind her and the fire burns inside her but it burns nowhere else – not in the undead _reptile_before her, not in the soldier in the shadows. There is nothing but frost there, nothing but shadow; barren, like Jeraddo. But Jeraddo, even, had its uses. Jeraddo, at least, has always been of Bajor.

It is not long before the fire takes her, not long before she is cast aside by mere shadow-puppets. It does not burn; or, at least, it burns no more than the thing that seethes at the heart of her, hurts no more than the beast that claws at the inside of her throat. "Emissary," her last word was. _Emissary_. Emissary, for the usurper; and she hates herself, and the darkness comes to her.

But from the darkness comes a whisper and a light; a whisper hoarse and a light a deeper red than blood. It calls her name, that whisper. It blinks at her face, that light. Her mouth opens and moves but the sounds that come are meaningless, and she bites her tongue and she scolds herself. She has moved beyond this fear. She can speak. She _will_ speak:

"Where are they?"

And the whisper-light blinks: "Where they belong."

She understands this dispassion, since she has felt it before; she understands this cool indignation, since it is what lurks at the outer core of her. They are where they belong. In the darkness, in the light; they are gone. They have gone away; _that_ is where they have _always_ belonged.

"And me?"

Her voice is small and she would shirk from it herself if she did not understand, somewhere deep behind her awe, what the whisper-light is. It gleams; it chuckles, almost. "And you, Winn Adami," she almost hears it say: "You have never been."

With a sudden surge of fear she whispers: "And Bajor?"

"And Bajor," the whisper-light might have said. "Bajor has always been."

There is no silence here in this darkness, but for a moment Winn Adami is silent and hears nothing. And, finally, she brings herself to force sounds from her sagging mouth: "But rather badly, I fear."

And bodiless returns: "We know."

And there is nothing to say to this save in angry stares, and the chuckling does not stop; not unto the darkness clears, not unto the burning numbs, not unto Winn Adami wakes alone in the Caves with something grown on her heart that was not there before. The rage remains. The pride remains. Bajor, with its green hills and green seas, remains.

But her doubt is gone.

Her doubt which through the years has been her surest companion has fled, and as the last burst of fire licks at the darkest corner of stone she smiles.

And she returns to Ashalla with her back straight and her head high, and her eyes meet Shakaar Edon's and they are full of that fire, and Shakaar Edon in his heretic heart knows, and Shakaar Edon and his heretic heart do not resist. Shakaar Edon is Bajoran. Shakaar Edon understands, in the end. They all do, and at Winn Adami's word the forges alight.

And Cardassia, still broken from the passing of the Dominion, trembles. It bows its head. It does not speak.

The Federation, now broken from the passing of the Bajoran fires, shudders. It bows its head. It regrets having never spoken.

And in the smoke she stands unbowed, eyes brighter than the flames which curl around the stars, tongue harsher than the torpedoes nestled in her warships; in _Bajor's_ warships.

And still she is Kai.

And _she_ is of Bajor.


End file.
